Striking mights and maybes even more

A useless thing called life

It's a biting cold again

From the sea...

Tongue and mind wanted to lock down and legs wanted to flee, yet each step carried him closer to her. It felt like wading through bodies and souls, tugging at him and trying to force him the other way, and part of him longed to give in, to turn and flee. He was too weak inside, too cracked and broken, run ragged in dreams and waking life alike. He did not want to smile, to listen and analyze, to be the selfless, glacial man he once had been. The thought of it made him feel sick inside, but he forced it aside. He had no time to derp off and mope in a corner. He had no.. no right. His life did not belong to him, but to his herd, and he had learned, and accepted, that a long time ago.

She seemed surprised, but pleased, to see him, and he wondered why. Did she not know that he was back, that he once more walked among them at night (and shook awake with terror in his eyes each time he slept in the darkness of a cave, alone)? Did she not know that he haunted them, that his quiet eyes watched their borders in the daylight (and that his restless soul drove him away, time and time again)? Perhaps not, or perhaps she had not believed he would be out here, on the middle of the Steppe, but then, she did not know him all that well. A small smile graced his face as he shifted his weight in the snow.

Her eyes fell to his hooves and he frowned slightly, wondering why she dared not look upon him; he had seen his reflection a thousand times since his return, and he was neither ugly nor outwardly broken. He was the same pristine white flecked with black as he had always been, and only when alone did his eyes become clouded with pain and every thing he forced to keep down. Her question brought a small grimace to his face, a movement which he did not think of; like so many times before it was a reflex, something his body had learned to do, and remembered even now. Would it one day betray him, and portray what he felt, and not what he was used to doing? Perhaps.

"I.. disappeared," he told her vaguely, the grimace turning into a small, worried smile. She seemed so.. off, in a way; her gaze kept roving, as if she was nervous. Did she think him dead, and a ghost? "But it does not matter. I am back now." Slight warmth laced his voice as he spoke, wishing not to answer the question she had asked; he did not want to remember those long days and longer nights, the faces and the bodies he knew but the souls he did not. He did not want to remember the terror of his nightmares. "How have you been?" Better to speak of her, than of him, and with slight concern lurking in his eyes he studied her, waiting for her response. Was that tears coating her eyes? Would his question unleash a flood, a sob story, something he would have to somehow take care of? If he could retrace his steps, turn back time, he would've taken back his words, would've stared at her in cold silence, but he couldn't; he was Mauja, the Frostheart, the beloved King of the Edge, except that fairytale had been shattered.

He was Mauja the Lost King, the broken-minded, black-spirited Demon of the Plague.